Cohesion and Coherence In Text

Supong Tangkiengsirisin
Language Institute, Thammasat University

ABSTRACT
This paper provides a general overview of cohesion and coherence, two
essential elements that facilitate textual continuity. The article begins with the
presentation of different views and definitions of the two terms. Subsequently,
cohesion and coherence are discussed in terms of their use in written texts. The
following section provides a review of research studies on cohesion and coherence.
The article ends with a discussion of the role that cohesion and coherence play in
texts. Pedagogical implications are also provided.
The terms cohesion and coherence are defined differently by different
linguists. For some, the two terms are interchangeable or imply each other; for others
they are independent of one another. This paper presents various points of view
regarding cohesion and coherence in text and provides a review of research studies on
cohesion and coherence in writing.
Keywords: Cohesion, Coherence, Linguistics, Writing

DIFFERENT VIEWS ON COHESION AND COHERENCE
The concept of cohesion was introduced by Halliday and Hasan (1976),
whose major concern is to investigate how sentences are linked in a text. For them,
the various parts of a paragraph are connected together by cohesive ties:
A text has texture, and this is what distinguishes it from something
that is not a text If a passage of English containing more than
one sentence is perceived as a text, there will be certain linguistic
features present in that passage which can be identified as
contributing to its total unity and giving it texture (2).

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the writer is able to hold together
meanings in the related sentences in a number of ways, and cohesion is created to
establish the structure of meaning. They also claim that cohesion is a factor that
indicates whether a text is well-connected or merely a group of unrelated sentences. It
should, however, be noted that though involved with meaning between sentences,
cohesion does not deal with content of a text. Halliday and Hasan (1976) explicitly
state that cohesion does not concern what a text means; it concerns how the text is
constructed as a semantic edifice (26). That is, although cohesion usually plays a role
in a paragraph, it does not lead to the global flow of a text across paragraphs.
While cohesion is perceived as the overt linguistic signal between propositions,
coherence is viewed by Widdowson (1978) as the relationship between illocutionary
acts. The utterances are not considered coherent unless the actions performed by the
utterances are recognised. Discourse involves the context and needs to be interpreted
through the understanding of discourse structures and the use of many strategies; for
example, to comprehend discourse, we interpret the discourse assuming that if one
thing is said after another, the two things are related in some way.
Coherence can be regarded as a connection between utterances with discourse
structure, meaning, and action being combined (Schiffrin, 1987). In Schiffrins view,
cohesion is available in various types of discourse and can be identified as a tool of
communication completed by interaction between the speaker and the hearer, such as
question/answer pairs (9). To Schiffrin, cohesive devices are clues that help locate
meanings and accommodate the understanding of a conversation. Discourse
coherence, therefore, is dependent on a speakers successful integration of different
verbal and nonverbal devices to situate a message in an interpretive frame and a
hearers corresponding synthetic ability to interpret such cues as a totality in order to
interpret that message (39). With regard to coherence, discourse markers are part of
participants linguistic tools that facilitate oral communication and are both verbal and
nonverbal features for the participants who jointly integrate forms, meanings, and
actions to make overall sense of what is said (39). Schiffrin (1987) also points out
that arguments may be organised without discourse markers. She proposes that
markers are not compulsory when a conversation moves on within their contexts and
the potential meaning relationship between them is already constrained (319). The
semantic relations of propositions are usually adequately clear for listeners or readers
to identify the meanings held between two discourse units without the presence of
markers.
Blakemore (1987) describes discourse as the linguistic form of the utterance,
contextual assumptions and the assumption that the speaker is being relevant (44).
According to Blakemore (1987, 1992), to understand an utterance requires two
processes. The explicit process involves establishing what proposition the utterance
has actually expressed, and the implicit process involves establishing extra proposition.
From his viewpoint, the relevance theory is comprehensive and can account for cases
where a hearers interpretation is not actually based on the proposition expressed, but
rather on the non-linguistic features or contextual features. Blakemore also points out
that daily utterances are often elliptical; that is, a complete proposition derived from
isolated utterances such as Any e-mail? in an everyday conversation is recoverable
and interpretable by hearers. Discourse coherence directly interacts with a hearer and
is not evidence for the presence of discourse markers. From her point of view,
utterances can be comprehended when the speaker makes coherence in a text
become relevant to the hearer, and the hearer assumes that the speaker is being
relevant. In such a case, the hearer or reader is given considerable responsibility for
interpretation from the speaker or writer.
Coherence may be treated as a semantic property of discourses, based on the
interpretation each individual sentence relative to the interpretation of other
sentences (Van Dijk, 1977: 93). Coherence between sentences, in van Dijks point of
view, is based not only on the sequential relation between expressed and
interpolated propositions, but also on the topic of discourse of a particular passage
(95). Cohesion does not lead to coherence, but coherence does not suffice to make a
text coherent while there must be some additional linguistic property (like cohesion)
that makes a text coherent. The two levels of coherence include micro-coherence,
which is the linear or sequential relations between propositions, and the macro-
coherence, the global or overall coherence of a discourse in terms of hierarchical topic
progression.
Enkvist (1978) distinguishes between two types of semantic connection: (1)
connection through cohesion in the surface level and (2) connection through
coherence in the profound level. In this instance, cohesion and coherence do not
imply each other. It is, therefore, possible that a text can be cohesive but not coherent
and vice versa; and it is also possible that a text is both cohesive and coherent. For
example,

(1) Have you met Virasuda Sribayak? She was here yesterday.
The two sentences in item (1) are related through the pronoun she and there is
also a semantic relation between them. That is, they are both cohesive and coherent.
In item (2) below, there are no cohesive elements but it is semantically coherent.
Therefore, it is coherent without being cohesive.

(2) Liverpool shot a goal. The whistle blew.

Item (3) is cohesive but not coherent. It contains the cohesive element him but
it is not pragmatically appropriate.
(3) My grandfather died. I shall see him tomorrow.

A text must have surface cohesion as well as overall coherence, and sentences
in a coherent text must conform to the picture of one possible world in the
experience or imagination of the receiver (Enkvist, 1978:126), and a message must
provide adequate signals for the listener or the readers to make connections for the
understanding of a text.
Enkvist (1990) defines coherence as the quality that makes a text conform to a
consistent world picture and is therefore summarisable and interpretable (14), and
coherence is primarily related to the nature and property of the text. Like Enkvist,
Brown and Yule (1983) believe that coherence depends primarily on the interpretation
of linguistic messages. As a result, the listener or the reader will try to interpret a
sequence of sentences as being coherent, even when there is no explicit cohesive
element to signal a relationship:
Within chunks of language which are conventionally presented as
texts, the hearer/reader will make every effort to impose a
coherent interpretation, i.e. to treat the language thus presented
as constituting text. We do not see an advantage in trying to
determine constitutive formal features which a text must possess
to qualify as a text. Texts are what hearers and readers treat
as texts. (199)

Lovejoy and Lance (1991), in their study of written discourse, show that
cohesion can be achieved through the operation of theme-rheme. This movement
represents how information is managed. According to Lovejoy and Lance, theme is
the point of departure for the presentation of information, and rheme constitutes
the information the writer wishes to impart about the theme (256). These two
elements are presented alternatively in a text to form a connected text. While theme
conveys information that is initially introduced in discourse, rheme presents specific
information regarding the theme. As this movement continues, ideas in a text or
discourse are expected to flow along smoothly and are easier for the reader to
understand. While old information (theme) is presented as background information in
each statement, new information (rheme) is introduced to clarify the information in the
theme.
There are also other views regarding cohesion and coherence. Morgan and
Sellner (1980) emphasise the role of content within a text, where cohesion is
concerned with content but has some linguistic consequence. Carrell (1982) also
contends that cohesion does not bring about coherence, for mere coherence of
content does not suffice to make a text coherent while there must be some
additional linguistic property (like cohesion) that makes a text coherent (482).
Cohesion is therefore the effect and not the cause of coherence. Relying on schemata,
readers can themselves perceive coherence even in discourse that contains very few
cohesive elements or none at all.
From a textual perspective, Hoey (1991) examined how lexical cohesive
elements would make a text organised. He examined how lexical features and
syntactic repetition would contribute to cohesion. His study is focused on the text
organisation which can be achieved through the inter-relationship between cohesion
and coherence. Within this general framework, cohesion is regarded as an element that
accommodates coherence. When a text is cohesive and coherent, it will enable the
reader to process information more rapidly. Hoey claims that cohesion is a property
of the text and coherence is a facet of the readers evaluation of a text (12).
According to Hoey (1991), lexical repetition as a major cohesive device
constructs a matrix and creates a net of bonds in the text. He proposes that lexical
repetitions can show the relatedness of the sentences within the texts. He classifies
lexical repetitions into eight types: simple lexical repetition, complex lexical repetition,
simple mutual paraphrase, simple partial paraphrase, complex paraphrase,
substitution, co-reference and ellipsis.
Simple lexical repetition is identified by a link between two lexical items, the
first of which is repeated in a subsequent sentence without great change in form.
However, complex lexical repetition is identified by a repetitive link between two
lexical items that, though sharing a morpheme, are not totally identical or that are
identical with different grammatical functions. Simple paraphrase, whether mutual or
partial, is identified by a link between two lexical items, one of which can substitute for
another. Complex paraphrase refers to two lexical items which are related to one
another without sharing a lexical morpheme (e.g. antonym).
Johns (1986) divides coherence into two types: text-based and reader-based. By
her definition, text-based coherence refers to an inherent feature of the text, which
involves cohesion and unity. This type of coherence involves how sentences are linked
and how text is unified. Reader-based coherence, on the other hand, requires
successful interaction between the reader and the text. In this type, coherence is
based on the degree of compatibility between the readers expectations and the
intended meaning through the underlying structure of a text.
Connor and Johns (1990) describe coherent text as text in which the
expectations of the reader are fulfilled (1). The reader uses his or her knowledge of
the world to interpret a text, expecting that his or her knowledge will correspond to
the organisation and argument of a text. The reader relies on this kind of knowledge to
anticipate information that will be subsequently presented. Interacting with the reader,
a coherent text accommodates the readers expectation of sequential logical ideas,
contributing to the readers comprehension and the clear meaning of a text. By the
same token, as logical ideas are presented through well connected words and
sentences, the writer helps the reader interpret and process information in a text more
easily (Tannen, 1984).
Although the study of discourse topic is an unwieldy area, it constitutes an
important aspect of cohesion and coherence as a hierarchical organisation of the
discourse. Lautamatti (1987) has examined how the reader is able to understand a text
and the discourse theme or topic. Coherence, according to her, is based on a clear
sentence topic. Using the terms topic and comment, she proposed an approach to the
analysis of textual flow.
Lautamatti (1987) defines the term topic as what the sentence is about and the
term comment as information about the topic. All sentence topics are related in
certain ways to the global discourse topic of the text. The patterns of relations
between discourse topics, and subtopics are called topical development of discourse.
This development is represented as three types of progressions: (1) parallel
progression, with the identical topics in the subsequent sentences; (2) sequential
progression, with the comment of the preceding sentence becoming the topic of a
new one; and (3) extended parallel sequence, representing a parallel progression that
is interrupted by sequential progression.
Grabe (1985) also examined the characteristics of coherence, claiming that
coherence establishes the relationship between propositions leading to the overall
theme. He proposes the pragmatic function of coherence. He identifies three features
that are essential to coherence: a discourse theme, a set of relevant assertions relating
logically among themselves by means of subordination, coordination, and
superordination; and an information structure imposed on the text to guide the reader
in understanding the theme or the purpose of the author.
Givon (1983) has achieved the most outstanding results in the study of topic
continuity. He proposes a three-level framework for topic continuity: thematic
continuity, action continuity, and topics/participants continuity. He suggests the study
of referential distance, topic persistence and potential interference. However,
Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) provides another theoretical framework for
studying the management of information flow and the organisation of discourse. Most
Functional Sentence Perspectivists hypothesise that the primary communicative
function of the topic expresses the given information in a sentence. Such information is
closely related to preceding sentences. On the other hand, the comment primarily
expresses the new information. Such information is not expressed in or derived from
prior sentences. The information flow, therefore, moves from topic to comment,
reflecting the movement of the mind because it processes information most effectively
if given information or background information precedes new information.
Accordingly, theorists of FSP are concerned with the analysis of the sentence
into parts that have a function in the total communication process. For instance, an
English sentence is often considered to involve topic and comment. The sentence
topic often correlates with the grammatical subject and the comment often correlates
with the grammatical predicate, which bears the sentential focus. A discourse that
correlates with FSP should be more readable and cohesive than one that fails to
observe FSP. Connections between themes involve series of sentences regarding
identity chains, partial identity, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and meronymy.
Connections between rhemes involve the repetitions of identical propositions in
adjacent sentences. While patterns of theme and rheme connections can account for
only some part of a text, diversity of patterns deal with an entire text. Additionally,
whereas the framework of a theme and rheme connections characterise patterns
within text types, coherence in contextual genres is not accounted for in different text
types. The theme and rheme approach fails to deal with coherence in various
contextual and propositional situations.
However, the theory of cohesive ties introduced by Halliday and Hasan (1976)
was modified into a theory of cohesive harmony (Hasan: 1984; Halliday and Hasan:
1989). Due to the limitations of the use of cohesive ties to analyse texts as coherent
and well-written, Hasan (1984) formulated a new theory to account for the fact that
cohesion contributes to coherence. In her new approach, coherence is not determined
by the type and quantity of cohesive ties that appear in a text, but it is mainly
characterized by the degree and frequency with which these ties interact with each
other. According to this theory, there are two cohesive ties which can interact with
each other: those that form identity chains, expressed through the use of pronominal
cohesion and those that form similarity strings, expressed through substitution, ellipsis,
repetition, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, and meronymy. Interaction does occur
when one member of a string or a chain is in the identical relationship to more than
one member of another string or chain. For instance,

(4) Matthew could no longer work here. He skipped a lot of work.

Item (4) presents two sentences which are connected by a cohesive tie
established between a proper noun, or an antecedent, and pronoun reference. Hasan
considers such interaction between chains and strings cohesive harmony. This type of
interaction is realised through the relationship between participants and actions
expressed in sentences. The chain in the example above represents the semantic
relation of participants (the antecedent and the pronoun reference) and a string
connects the actions in the two sentences. In this context these two propositions can
be considered hyponymous (one is an instance of the other). The chain and string in
item (4), therefore, interact through the semantic relation of material processes (work
and skipped) and actors (Matthew and he). Items that involve or represent interaction
between a chain and a string are considered as central tokens though there are other
sentence elements that do not produce chains. Hasan proposes that the higher the
proportion of central to non-central tokens, the more coherent the text is likely to be.

COHESION AND COHERENCE IN WRITING
Differences between spoken and written language would provide a justification
for the importance of cohesion in writing. According to Chafe (1982), writing is generally
produced under basically different assumptions from those of speaking. Whereas
speaking typically occurs in a face-to-face interactive situation, writing is typically
performed in social isolation (Chafe, 1982) Academic writing, in particular, is usually
produced in accordance with certain conventions that differentiate the two language
skills. Based on this difference, Chafe characterised speaking as involvement and
writing as detachment. These two concepts primarily address the speakers and
writers relationships to their audience. Chafe explained such relationships as follows:
The speaker is aware of an obligation to communicate what he or
she has in mind in a way that reflects the richness of his or her
thoughtsnot to present a logically coherent but experientially
stark skeleton, but to enrich it with the complex details of real
experiencesto have less concern for consistency than for
experiential involvement. The situation of the writer is
fundamentally different. His or her readers are displaced in time
and space, and he or she may not even know in any specific
terms who the audience will be. The result is that the writer is
less concerned with experiential richness, and more concerned
with producing something that will be consistent and defensible
when read by different people at different times in different places
(45).

The essential features of a well-written text are the unity and connectedness,
making the individual sentences in the text hang together and relate to one another
(Celce-Murcia and Olshtain, 2000). This textual relationship is partially a result of
coherent organisation of the propositions and ideas presented in writing. In addition,
this relationship significantly depends on the painstaking process the writer goes
through in order to create formal and grammatical cohesion among paragraphs and
among sentences in each paragraph (Cornbleet and Carter, 2001). Therefore, the writer
can strengthen coherence, and create global and local unity by employing various
devices.
The overall coherence of a longer text depends on the coherence within each
paragraph or section of the text. (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain, 2000). In expository
writing, coherence is an essential feature that links ideas or information in different
parts of the text so that the reader can understand the entire text more easily. Each
sentence in this type of writing is related to both previous and subsequent sentences.
In addition, the purpose and the intended audience of an expository text also play a
crucial role. For example, a text focusing on the latest developments in biology might
take a different form depending on whether it is intended to be included in a popular
magazine, a biology textbook, or a scientific journal. Each of these text types follows
certain writing conventions; that is, while a popular magazine is intended to convey
information to the public in general, a biology textbook and a scientific journal are
intended for students who are being introduced to the subject area and scientists who
are specialised in the field, respectively. Therefore, coherence can create a logical
progression in a text so that the reader can comprehend the text through the
connectedness among the propositions presented in the text while relating the
information in the text to his or her own knowledge of the world.
In Harriss (1990) study on textual coherence, the organisational functions
fulfilled by opening sentences of paragraphs in scientific writing were investigated.
Opening sentences were analysed and classified into five different groups: sentences
which announce or identify the main topic of a text, those that state a fact or define
the main topic of a text, those discussing similarities or differences in regard to the
main scientific element discussed in the writing, those that identify a significant
previous event, and finally those which point out a false assumption or the lack of
evidence for understanding some phenomenon. According to Harris (1990), all these
opening sentence types play a role in organising ideas or information in a paragraph,
and in some scientific paragraphs there tend to be two sentences that organise ideas
or informationthe opening sentence and another one that logically follows the
opening sentence. All types of opening sentences help the reader read or browse
through an easier and more effective interpretation process. Showing consideration for
the reader, a skilled writer uses such opening sentences for clearer communication.

3. Research Studies on Cohesion and Coherence in L2 Writing
The existing dichotomy between cohesion and coherence is evident in the
conflicting results reported in studies which investigated these two constructs and
attempted to integrate them into a unified theory to account for writing quality. For
example, Tierney and Mosenthal (1983) analysed the correlation between coherence
scores and the number of cohesive ties used in compositions written by ESL students.
The participants, who were enrolled in rhetoric classes, were randomly provided with
two different scenarios and subsequently were assigned to write two essays. In the first
writing scenario which was more familiar, the participants watched a film on a writer
before writing essays, whereas the participants in the other writing scenario which was
unfamiliar watched a film on another writer before writing a biographical essay and
developing the theme of evil in an essay. The participants were provided with the
outlines to follow in writing essays. The purpose for this provision was to control the
content and the structure of the written work. After that, three teachers holistically
rated the essays and subsequently ranked them on the basis of coherence. The
results, which were derived from the statistical analysis that was used to compare the
rankings of coherence in the essays and the use of cohesive devices in the two
scenarios and on the two different writing topics, revealed no significant interaction
effect regarding the use of cohesive devices although a significant interaction was
gained for coherence rankings. As there was no causal relationship between cohesive
ties and coherence rankings, cohesion analysis was considered to be a poor index of
coherence or writing quality.
In another study, Connor (1984) examined the difference in the cohesive
density in argumentative essays composed by two English native speaking writers and
two advanced ESL writers (whose mother tongues were Japanese and Spanish). The
participants were asked to write expository essays. Two L1 English postgraduate
students holistically rated the six essays for coherence and reached 100% agreement
in their ranking. The essays were analysed in terms of the percentage of occurrences of
cohesive devices they contained. Connor found that being cohesive, ESL texts might
not be coherent, and that there was no difference in cohesive density (reference or
conjunction) in essays composed by the English native speaker student and the ESL
students. These results, however, contradict Witte and Faigleys (1981) findings that
show differences in the frequencies of grammatical cohesive devices in good versus
poor essays, but support Tierney and Mosenthals (1983) conclusion that cohesive
density did not discriminate levels of coherence in writing. In addition, Connor
suggested that ESL essays lacked lexical variety and elaboration, and a high percentage
of repetition and conjunction were used. On the other hand, L1 English texts exhibited
greater lexical variety with a higher percentage of collocation and less repetition.
McCulley (1985) investigated the connection between cohesion and writing
quality in his analysis of 120 argumentative essays composed by high school students.
In this study, he attempted to find out whether there existed a correlation between
primary trait ratings of writing quality, coherence ratings based on a scale provided by
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 1978-1979, and the use of
cohesive devices in the student essays. Each essay was analysed in terms of cohesion
by two coders using Hallidays and Hasans (1976) taxonomy, and it was also rated on
the basis of writing quality by two full-time teachers from the English Department. With
a high level of interrater reliability regarding both cohesion and writing quality, the
results obtained from the statistical analysis revealed that writing quality did not
correlate with the total number of cohesive ties used in the essays. However, there
was positive correlation between writing quality and the NAEP coherence rating, and
between writing quality and specific cohesive ties including demonstratives, nominal
substitution and ellipsis, repetition, synonymy, hyponymy and collocation.
It was obvious that McCulley (1985) attempted to resolve the conflicting results
obtained by Witte and Faigleys (1981) and those obtained by Tierney and Mosenthals
(1983) and Connor (1984). The significant differences he obtained from his study
suggested that, with an adequately large sample size, and cohesion analysis was
conducted at the finest level of analysis, significant differences between good versus
poor essays would be revealed. The results of his study also revealed that certain
cohesive ties (e.g. demonstratives, nominal substitution and repetition) contributed to
the positive assessment of writing quality, and suggested that lexical cohesive devices
primarily made a more important contribution to coherence.
Neuner (1987) analysed twenty good essays versus twenty poor essays written
by college freshman students. The essays, which were produced after instruction and
practice, were of the expository mode and were randomly selected from a larger set of
essays. Each of the selected essays was holistically rated by two readers, and cohesion
analysis was conducted by three coders on each essay. T-tests were used to analyse
the statistical distinction between the good essays and poor essays in terms of the use
of cohesive devices, cohesive distance and chain length. Results revealed that the
frequency or percentage of cohesive ties did not correlate with writing quality, and
there was no significant difference in cohesive distance between good and poor essays.
Longer cohesive chains, greater lexical variety, and effective word choice were essential
features of well-written essays. The results obtained from Neuners (1987) study
account for the lack of difference in cohesive density in good versus poor essays.
In another study, Field and Oi (1992) compared the use of conjunction in
argumentative essays composed by Australian high school students and Cantonese
high school students. The essays were not rated for coherence or writing quality. T-
tests were used to analyse the distinction in the use of conjunction in the essays
composed by English native speaker students and non-native speaker students. Results
showed that the L2 English essays contained significantly more conjunctions than did
the L1 English texts. This finding contradicts Connors (1984) finding that there was no
significant difference in the use of cohesive devices in L1 in comparison to L2 texts.
Johnson (1992) analysed the use of cohesion in sixty essays. Twenty were
written in L1 Malay, twenty in L1 English and twenty in Malay ESL. Two native English
readers and one L1 Malay reader rated the essays written in English; one L1 English
reader and one L1 Malay reader rated the essays written in Malay. T-tests were used to
analyse the distinction in the use of cohesive devices and cohesive distance between
the good essays and the poor essays. Results showed that there was no significant
difference in the degree of cohesion or cohesive distance between the good essays
and the poor essays. Additionally, results revealed that the good L1 Malay essays
contained more cohesive devices used for repetition than the poor ones. This finding
advocated McCullens (1985) conclusion that writing quality correlated with the use of
repetition in expository essays. Also, it was found that more tokens of referential ties
and conjunctive ties were located in well-written native English essays suggesting that
there were differences in the use of cohesive devices with regard to specific types of
cohesive ties. The result of Johnsons (1992) study indicated that good and poor essays
might be similar in terms of the frequencies of cohesive devices but differ significantly
in terms of specific types of cohesive devices they contained.
Norments (1994) study analysed 126 expository and narrative essays written in
L1 Chinese and Chinese ESL in terms of the use of cohesive devices. The participants
consisted of high-proficiency and low-proficiency writers divided up into groups
according to their scores on the essays produced within a four-week period. The L1
Chinese and Chinese ESL essays written by L1 Chinese college students were randomly
selected and rated by three L1 Chinese and three L1 English doctoral students who
received training on rating essays. Frequencies and percentage of occurrences of
cohesive devices and ANOVA were used to analyse the data. With a high level of
interrater reliability, results showed that high-proficiency students (both Chinese and
English) used more cohesive devices in their writing; the most frequently occurring
cohesive devices were repetition, pronouns and conjunction.
In the most recent study, Lee (2002) conducted a classroom inquiry in which
she provided instruction of coherence to first-year students at the Hong Kong
Polytechnic University. The participants completed the pre- and post-revision tasks
which were analysed in terms of cohesive devices, information structure, topical
development, propositional relations, macrostructure and metadiscoursal features.
Four out of the 16 participants conducted six protocols while they were revising their
drafts. The protocol data were translated, transcribed and coded with the coding
scheme that contained categories including the coherence topics covered in the
lessons and any other topics that arose from the data (i.e. purpose, main idea,
audience, context of situation, macrostructure, information distribution, propositions,
cohesion, metadiscourse, content, language use, syntax, mechanics and length). Inter-
coder agreement was conducted with 90% agreement being reached. All the 16
students were also asked to complete an evaluation questionnaire at the end of the
study to assess the instruction of coherence throughout the course. A group interview
was conducted with the four students selected for in-depth protocol analysis to find
out their views regarding the teaching and learning of coherence and writing.
In Lees (2002) study, results revealed all positive findings from all types of
data: product, process and perception data. Firstly, regarding the product data, based
on the findings from topical structure analysis, in post-revision texts, the participants
elaborated on the sentence topics more than the pre-revision texts and produced
coherent writing. The results of the independent readers judgments of the pre- and
post-revision drafts also suggested that the participants improved the overall
coherence after revisions. Secondly, based on the findings from the protocol data, the
results suggested that during the study, the participants were concerned with
coherence during revision and attended to the various aspects of coherence taught
prior to revisions. Finally, based on the findings from the perception data, the results
showed that the participants apparently had developed a better understanding of
writing and felt that the teaching of coherence had provided them with resources
useful for their writing.
All in all, a study of cohesion and coherence, though theoretical in nature, can
provide significant insights for applied linguistics, especially in language teaching.
Despite drawbacks and criticisms, cohesion is a useful tool to encourage second
language learners to produce texts that are well connected and coherent. Cohesion
and coherence can help student writers to avoid producing a discursive or unorganised
text. Because most non-native student writers are quite concerned about grammar and
syntactic errors in their writing, the teaching of cohesion and coherence will enhance
their understanding that writing a text is not simply writing with syntactic accuracy.
They should develop awareness towards writing as a means of communication and,
through explicit instruction, teacher feedback and essay revision, learn to craft reader-
based, well-organised prose. Lessons on cohesive ties and other features promoting
textual coherence can raise students consciousness and give them insights into how
they can express their thoughts with clear directions and create their text in an
effective manner. Then instruction and feedback focusing on these elements will
encourage and consolidate L2 students learning of cohesion and coherence, and
through the revision process, students should be able to improve their writing skill and
the coherence of their texts.


REFERENCES
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